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Pick of the Pavilions at 2023’s Venice Biennale
The architect took to Facebook to post a 1,300-word article explaining why he thought the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale was ‘mislabelled’ and was ‘just generating confusion and disappointment’ because it ‘does not show any architecture’.
Schumacher said he felt let down by many of the national pavilions which, he claimed, ‘refuse to show the work of their architects’. He added that he had given up visiting the countries’ showcases after ‘seeing no architecture in 12 out of 12 pavilions’.
He poured particular scorn on Germany’s offering, which he branded a ‘one-liner message’, adding: ‘The German pavilion is filled with piles of construction material. There is no point to spend more than two seconds in there.’
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This year’s biennale has been curated by Ghanaian-Scottish architect Lesley Lokko, who has focused on Africa – more than half of the 89 participants are from Africa or the African diaspora – and has a theme based on what it means to be ‘an agent of change’.
The Biennale website reads: '[The] exhibition is not a single story, but multiple stories that reflect the vexing, gorgeous kaleidoscope of ideas, contexts, aspirations, and meanings that is every voice responding to the issues of its time.’
However Schumacher, who launched a similar attack on the curators of the national pavilions in 2018, was unimpressed.
The new post, entitled Venice Biennale Blues, goes on: ‘Is my conception of architecture as discipline too narrow if I expect to see architectural design in an architecture biennale? I don't think so.
‘No talk about “architecture as expanded field” can convince me that we are still in an architectural event when the scene is dominated by documentaries, critical art practice and symbolic installations, while architectural works are nowhere to be seen in 99 per cent of the exhibition space.’
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In his latest attack on the curators he said that ‘thematising social ills has become the standard, the expected, unassailable, safe option’.
Schumacher added: ‘It’s also easy to organise and cost-effective. Instead of the risky and difficult task to select, explain the selection, and deal with 25 architects, a single artist can be commissioned (or two to three) to interpret the theme, and be left alone to do so.
‘It’s all too convenient and cost-effected. For the curators of the national pavilions this is the easiest way to discharge the curatorial burden. But it’s such a lazy, lame and predictable cop-out.’
Schumacher did find praise for the work on show in the Chinese pavilion, showcasing works by studios including Neru&Hu and Standard Architecture, and the ‘suite of equally impressive projects’ by Adjaye Associates.
Source:David Adjaye Associates and KNMA
Architectural model of Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) designed by David Adjaye in collaboration with S Ghosh & Associates as unveiled at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia in May 2023
However, the architect concluded by saying the event may start to lose its international reputation if it continued in its current direction.
Schumacher’s Facebook post has already provoked more than a hundred comments, including a response from Joana da Rocha Sá Lima, architect with Oslo-based consultancy ComteBureau, who said: ‘Although I may agree that the Venice Biennale has transformed into a vanity fair over the past years, losing its original meaning and purpose – to highlight current trends, concepts, and innovations in the field of architecture – there are now very few good cases to showcase. It is crucial for us to recognise that the field of architecture is going through a necessary reset.
‘It is an opportunity to start anew, rising from the ashes of what you [Schumacher] and your peers have turned architecture into: a mere formalist exercise devoid of substance … and servitude to capitalism.’
She added: ‘Architects and the discipline of architecture must respond to this demand for change swiftly and address the major societal issues that we are facing. If there is any hope left for our inhabited planet, the response needs to occur urgently.’
The Norwegian-based architect went on: ‘The prevailing brand of architects and architecture, like yours, is obsolete. It is time for a paradigm shift – one that aligns with the needs of our society, our environment, and our shared humanity. What we see in the Venice Biennale is an attempt to give shape to a change whose exact form is yet unknown.’
A differing opinion of the Biennale was also put forward by Edwin Heathcote, though he also acknowledged the lack of architecture which had prompted Schumacher's outburst. Writing last week in The Financial Times he said: ‘Lokko’s Biennale represents not only a geographical but a radical generational shift. I heard many complaints about the scarcity of buildings on show. But this is an expression of the desires of another generation and another continent and it is vivid, vital and timely.
‘The gap between Lokko’s generous enthusiasm and the architectural establishment’s apathy is a sign of a huge schism opening up in the culture and the profession, the biggest split in three decades of Biennales.’
Lesley Lokko declined to comment.
German pavilion at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale
Comments
Phin Harper, chief executive of Open City and chief curator of the 2019 Oslo Architecture Triennale
Snooze! Schumacher's take on Venice is as boring as it is predictable. If he really can't see why material recycling (German Pavilion), floor construction (Belgium Pavilion) or sanitation (Finland Pavilion) are relevant to contemporary construction then he is even more detached from architectural practice than his most bizarre outbursts of the past have suggested.
Alison Killing of Killing Architects, whose Investigating Xinjiang’s Network of Detention Camps research project is among the installations in The Laboratory of the Future
I really enjoyed the Biennale and the energy and depth of thinking on show. I agree [with Schumacher] there were relatively few finished buildings displayed. But I don't think it's true to claim that the exhibitors didn't deal with architecture.
There was a lot of work that was deeply engaged in architectural and spatial questions and I actually appreciated seeing these ideas in a more raw form, not yet translated into buildings - I found it really enriching. Incorporating those ideas into buildings is something the architects visiting can do.
It's not possible to remove the politics from architecture
Schumacher's post seems intent on seeing not only buildings at the Biennale, but buildings apparently stripped of their politics. It's not possible to remove the politics from architecture - failing to acknowledge or discuss it though is about shoring up existing power structures. In my opinion, it's no bad thing to make the politics of architecture explicit - doing so reveals issues such as colonialism, racism, exclusion and exploitation, which urgently need to be addressed.
Finally, Schumacher has singled out China (the pavilion and the two Chinese contributors to the main exhibition) as good examples of building-focused contributions to the Biennale. What he doesn't note is the difficulty for architects in China engaging in more political stances given the authoritarian nature of the Chinese state and increasingly aggressive crackdowns on dissent.
He also focuses only on the more benign examples of Chinese architecture on display. I would be curious to hear his opinion of the Xinjiang detention camps, which are, after all, also Chinese architecture.
Sorry Phin, Patrik Schumacher is right, it’s an architecture free zone. Compounded and supported by incomprehensible verbiage throughout but where the British pavilion is once again the superb example
A homeless person wants a house not sympathy.
it pains me to say but I have to agree with his outburst i won’t be attending this bean feast of the privileged architectural elite as i am too busy trying to get projects out of the ground to find much interest in this grand standing
Perhaps Patrick Schumacher is just saying what a lot of us might think once we have visited and have a sudden Prosecco fuelled urge to see an actual building rather than a lot of 2nd division conceptual art?
Perhaps Patrick Schumacher is just saying what a lot of us might think once we have visited and have a sudden perhaps Prosecco fuelled urge to see a building which answers all the many questions being asked?
It’s a woke fest too. And like the profession is going broke. Problem is – more people will nod in private agreement with this statement than the vocal critics of it. This profession needs genuine conversation and perhaps Schumacher is beginning that.
The Architecture Bienalle is best when it has slower well explained content and gives access to really good architects work, like the zumthor exhibition, the Japanese Atelier bow wow exhibitions, or interesting less well known practices with great design and thinking process. There is also nothing wrong with a good old fashioned retrospective of a major design practice or a re-examining of a historical movement… In my opinion it is at its worst when it shows those overly gestural symbolic installations, which seem to act as a back drop for carbon intensive networking and conceptual posturing. However the pavilions are often a bit crap.
At best irrelevant to the vast majority of architects, at worst self-indulgence that deserves to be seriously questioned.
“It’s not possible to remove the politics from architecture” Yes it is.
China has opened again. I’m looking forward to a return, for it’s an extraordinary country that I love, and the opportunity of working with some remarkable and talented young people, all fellow travellers in architecture, very many of them young women. Universities throughout the UK are absolutely dependent on students from overseas, also very many from China, paying extraordinary high fees.
Aldo, genuine question: do you think think these students get back value for money – especially within the context of this profession – paying what they do? And do you not think this in itself is part of the leverage the CCP has on the west? It’s army of high paying kids propping up the largely mediocre institutions where tutors are being cancelled etc?
Austin Williams in his book “New Chinese Architecture” showcases twenty extraordinary Chinese women building the future in China: Di Shaohua; Ding Wowo; Dong Mei; Du Juan; Fan Beilei; Rossana Hu; Jiang Ying; Doreen Heng Liu; Lu Wenyu; Peng Lele; Qi Shanshan; Tang Yuen; Wang Luming; Wang Wei; Wang Youfen; Wei Na; Ye Min; Zhang Di; Zhang Jinqiu and Zhao Zhao all producing inspirational work despite the” difficulty for architects in China engaging in more political stances given the authoritarian nature of the Chinese state and increasingly aggressive crackdowns on dissent”